


i'm getting tired, and i need somewhere to begin

by lacecat



Series: post-finale collection [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Finale, Sexual Content, and silver just needs hugs, but then maybe second chances are a thing, madi deserves the Best, realizing they are both in love with the same man too late and its sad, sadness all around for a while, treasure island i don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 10:36:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10554904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacecat/pseuds/lacecat
Summary: Madi watches him steadily as he approaches her. “Perhaps one day,” she begins, but cuts herself off with a swallow, blinking back tears. They won’t be able to fill the hole between them, but maybe they can try to build around it, accommodate it.He lays a rough palm on her cheek, gentle. He loves her so much. “Perhaps,” Silver says, even though they both know it’s the furthest from a promise. They have survived on far less, after all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i was gonna make this super sad, but then i was like how about i just extend it to my other post-canon fic ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> as always, comments are deeply appreciated, i'm @jamesbarlow on tumblr!

•••

 

“It was the best solution,” Silver says, hating the way that Madi’s expression is flat. He would take anger, shouting, anything but the way she’s looking at him right now like there’s a stranger in front of her. “The only way any of us made it out alive, was to do this. I should not have concealed it, but I did. I made that choice to save you, can’t you see that?” 

 

He doesn’t say, _I don’t regret it_ , because they both know it’s a peculiar mix of a lie and a truth, mixing like oil and water underneath his skin. She knows it, he knows it, and he swallows when she doesn’t answer at first.

 

“You didn’t just make a choice,” Madi says, her voice quiet but no less vicious than if she were dragging a blade through his chest, and he flinches at the smallest crack in her expression, the hurt revealed there. It’s worse than the anger, the tears from earlier, or even if she were to hit him.“You made the decision for me. For both of us.” 

 

At those words, he is once again reminded by the missing figure between them, the one who used to be an easy target where he could affix his suffering, the blame. But now that he’s gone, they’re forced to look at each other. God, he didn’t know that looking at her like this would be staring at the sun, the clouds removed between them as he tries desperately to make her understand, even as it hurts to watch her, because he _needs_ her, needs her to see why. 

 

“I did what I thought-” Silver starts again, but she just raises her voice slightly, as thought she doesn’t want to hear the words fall again from his mouth. 

 

“You had no _right,”_ Madi hisses then, and the pain that’s on her face reflects the pain that Silver has felt every moment since he watched Captain Flint fade away. “You had no right, but you took it all away.” 

 

They both know that she means more than the war, because when was it ever just about the war?

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Silver tells her now, grip tightening on his crutch. “I meant every word I said before. I will wait for you to see the true motives behind my actions, be it for the rest of my life.”

 

“John Silver,” Madi says, and there’s exhaustion in her eyes, too much to be only from fighting and giving up a war, “I love you, and I believe I always will. But that does not protect you, not from this.”

 

She doesn’t touch him when she walks by, and he can hear her footsteps fade away. Hemanages to make it over to the bed before collapsing onto it, staring blankly up at the ceiling, feeling as though the ground below him is slowly shifting, ready to consume him. 

 

•••

 

Silver thinks back to a happier time, when they shared quiet words while covered in sweat and lying besides each other under the cloak of nightfall, before they had both thought the other dead, before all that had happened. 

 

Madi had told him that she had fallen in love with Silver back when he had clenched right back at her hand, trying his best not to scream as the healer applied the poultice to his infected stump. In the moment of excruciating pain, he reached out for her, trusted her, let her see behind the mask of the bravado, the ruthless quartermaster. She had seen the scared young man who just wanted a place to fit in, and he had readily let her into his heart since. 

 

In return, Silver told her that he had begun to fall in love with her the moment their eyes met in the middle of the camp for the very first time. The past direness of the situation aside, as he was being led to a cage, half-starved, she had glanced over at him, and he had been struck by the quiet, self-assured power that she had carried with her like an invisible crown. His heart clutches briefly at the memory, back when even that was so much more simple. 

 

He knew that she loved _him_ the moment they had stepped out of the rowboats on the shores of the Maroon Camp, and Madi’s eyes had looked for _him_ after seeing Silver, alone in the boat. He had seen the emotion flit across her face, too quick for the others to notice, but he was always watching her. Madi had looked lost before meeting his eyes, and he knew that she realized in that moment that Captain Flint was not to return, long before he had pulled out a piece of paper to the Maroon Queen and Julius. In that moment, he knew there was more than a war to be sacrificed here, as she had closed her eyes briefly, as though she could not stand the sight of the loss so evident in front of her in that moment. 

 

•••

 

She comes back early in the morning, her skin damp from the soft rain that’s been going on for several hours now. He doesn’t ask where she’s been, just moves over on the bed and lets his hands curl in the blanket underneath, not wanting to upset her further by offering his touch. 

  
Madi maneuvers on top of him, though, and he instinctively grabs her waist to steady her. She bends down to capture his mouth in a punishing kiss, and his surprise fades away into this more familiar ground. Her mouth is sharp and biting against his, and if he can taste the salt of dried tears on the corner of her mouth, he doesn’t bring it up, instead focusing on the way that her hands are roughly moving his clothes out of the way. 

 

He helps her move her skirts up above her waist, rocking his hips up as her teeth find their way down the cord of his neck. But she moves down his body before he can touch her, holding his wrists down until he gets the message, letting her take control. 

Her fingers dig into his chest, the hard flesh there, as Madi rides him, and now he presses his hands hard against the mattress as they move together. Her eyes are squeezed shut when she comes, fluttering around him, and he finishes inside of her with a quiet gasp soon after. He wants to bring his hands up to stroke soft skin, but not daring, not with the way she looks at him like all she sees is the missing man at his side. 

  
Madi moves off of him slowly, lying down beside them with only their arms brushing together. When he opens his eyes again, not entirely aware of when he had closed them in the first place, Silver looks over at her, and something drops in his gut when he sees there are fresh tears on her eyes. 

 

He sits up abruptly, stomach twisting, and begins to reach for her, but his hand freezes once more, unsure of where to step on the thin ice that’s built up without plunging somewhere unrecoverable. “Madi?” he whispers, his voice cracking.   


 

“He could be right here with us,” Madi says, staring up at the roof, and his stomach twists now in the other direction, just as painful. “We made a space for him, in between us. Now that he’s gone, there’s nothing to fill that hole but grief, and I’m afraid we will both carry that hole for the rest of our days.” Madi looks at him, then, and there’s muted understanding, finally, but Silver cannot count this as a victory. “He made space in his heart for us, but now nothing can ever come from it. He’ll bear those marks forever as well.”

 

Silver lets his hand drop. “I sent him to find Thomas. He’ll be happy.”

 

“You don’t get to decide that for him,” Madi says, and now her eyes are just sad. Sad for him, he realizes, and something bitter climbs in his throat. He doesn’t want her pity. 

 

“I did what’s best for him,” he grits out, not knowing if he’s trying to convince her or himself. “I did.”

 

Now it’s his turn to roll over, facing away from her pressing stare, and he buries his face in the pillow, chasing the elusive sleep so he doesn’t have to begin to make sense of her words. 

 

•••

 

She avoids him after that time for the next several weeks, spending her time negotiating the treaty with Julius and her mother, making sure the freed slaves have somewhere to call home. Silver lets her, understands that whatever is between them needs to heal, and he’ll give her all the space she needs as long as she knows that he is not going with the rest of the pirates. 

 

At night, she’s still in their bed, but there is still oceans of distance between them, water that he will swim through himself if it means a chance at repairing this. 

 

One day, it’s too hot even by the early afternoon to do much more than seek shade inside the hut, so he’s browsing the books Madi has collected over the years. His fingers brush upon a familiar book lying on the shelf, next to- out of all things- a copy of Woodes Rogers’ autobiography. Silver considers tossing that particular book in the trash, but then his attention is taken by the other volume. 

 

The cover is a faded color, more brown than red at this point, and a memory pricks at the back of his mind as his fingertips slide down the spine, feeling the worn ridges from the binding coming through. 

 

Silver flips it open, freezing at the curled script on the front page. The handwriting isn’t familiar, but the name at the top is, and he knows where it is from instantly. 

 

“He gave it to me for safe-keeping,” Madi says quietly from where she’s come up behind him, as he’s lost in the scribble of ink. “During a passing moment, back on the ship.”

 

Silver studies the page, unable to move. _My truest love_. 

 

“He said he would be back soon,” she continues. “I think now, he knew that was a lie.”

 

_James._

 

It’s as if something has finally broken inside of him as he closes the cover with a soft sound, and he turns to her. She looks unsurprised to see the tears in his eyes. “I love him,” Silver croaks, and the truth scrapes raw at the inside of his mouth.

 

“I know,” Madi says simply, and she moves to stand in front of him. He lets the book fall from his hands, back onto the top of the bookshelf, and her hand finds his, the touch everything he’s been waiting for the past several weeks and yet- it’s not enough. It’s as if something is missing, some space beneath his heart yawning open, swallowing the light until it’s just darkness tucked under his breastbone. 

 

“I thought I had to choose between the two of you,” Silver tells her, roughly, and her hands tighten on his. “I thought I could make that choice, to save us all from being burned by this war. But I didn’t, Madi, I just-” and he takes in a deep, shuddering breath, unable to form the words.

 

Madi waits as he catches his breath, his vision turning grey around the edges. “He said that I would regret it. He said it, and- damn him _,”_ Silver breathes out, wrenching his hands free from Madi’s. “ _Damn him_.” 

 

She watches him, still, as he paces back and forth across the room. He feels like he’s about to tear his hair out, rend his clothes, before she speaks up again.

 

“He told me to look out for you,” Madi says, “That you would learn of that cost, and I was to make sure that you did not break from the weight of it all.”

 

“How can I,” Silver says, and he knows he must look wild, red-rimmed eyes and gasping mouth, “How can I be so fucking _stupid?”_

 

Because of course, now that he understands, the pieces come flying together, and he is overcome by what he has hidden from himself. He remembers the slant of James’s shoulders as he moved through the gates in Savannah, the tilt of his head as he began to look back, but Silver had been too occupied to see it then. Too stuck on trying to prove him wrong, that he could save them both from the nightmare, that he could build a life with Madi, that he had not see what he was letting walk away in that moment. 

 

Madi moves slowly, until she’s right in front of him. She puts her hands on his shoulders, and he wants to lean into the touch, but he’s still frozen. “He said to forgive you,” she says softly, and takes him into her arms when he folds into himself, the pressure overwhelming as he chokes. 

 

Madi lets him muffle his sobs into the soft material of her shirt, letting her fingers wind into the hair at the base of his neck as he cries, rubbing back and forth as he clutches onto her, chest heaving. 

 

They stay like that for hours, maybe even days, until he has run out of tears to shed, and then they’re both still in that position, too tired to move. Silver stares blankly at the wall across the room, thinking about green eyes and sacrifice. 

 

•••

 

 

The ocean is calm today, the pale blue waves unusually moderate even as the wind buffs around them. The sand slides under his feet, and although he’s had lifetimes of practice walking on the crutch, he’s still careful when he sits down, staring out into the waves like he has each morning for the past year. 

 

The earth beneath him has been torn up from movement, quick maneuvers of feet that revealed dark dirt beneath the sand that’s rich and wet like soil that falls from the blade of a shovel. Silver watches the sun move high in the sky, and with every gust of wind, he remembers the clang of metal against metal, squinting in the bright light, the pale fabric of a billowing white shirt. 

 

He hears footsteps behind him, and Silver turns just as Madi has made it to the top of the hill. She looks at him, not approaching, not yet, and he glances once more at the horizon. He wonders if he were to take a hand of sand, if he could define it to himself s some sort of monument to the past that was built here, like tossing ashes into the wind. 

 

It’s different, between them, him and Madi. He’s found that while the wounds between them might heal, there’s scar tissue that has built up between them. She’s agreed to go to Bristol with him, but he does not mistake her acceptance as forgiveness. 

 

Their ship is due to leave shortly, but he had to come here first. He didn’t know whether he meant to curse into the air, or perhaps plunge into the waves below, but now that he’s sitting there, he thinks of standing beside an imaginary gravestone, honoring what might have been. He swallows at the dull pain that’s becoming more and more familiar every day he wakes up with it.

 

Madi still watches him steadily as he approaches her. “Perhaps one day,” she begins, but cuts herself off with a swallow, blinking back tears. They won’t be able to fill the hole between them, but maybe they can try to build around it, accommodate it.

 

He lays a rough palm on her cheek, gentle. He loves her so much. “Perhaps,” Silver says, even though they both know it’s the furthest from a promise. They have survived on far less, after all.

 

They begin to walk back down the hill together. Even if he can’t hold her hand like he used to, an easy gesture of affection, her being at his side is enough.

 

•••

 

Bristol is crowded, cold and grey, but it’s easier to forget warm sand and the color of lush green forests here, so they adapt. Silver finds an inn, the owner all too willing too pass it on for a few pieces of gold. 

 

“Perhaps I’ll retire somewhere warm and sunny, eh?” he grins at Silver, missing a front tooth, as they’re make sure all the paperwork is in order (and doing something legal and on the books, isn’t that a new experience in itself). 

 

Silver smiles tightly, and he signs his name in his sharp handwriting. Each drop of ink on the paper is another step away from the life they had left, and he watches the ink dry, and he feels absolutely nothing. 

 

Weeks pass by, the time fleeting into months, then years, until he wakes up one morning to loud knocking on his door. 

 

He glowers for a moment, getting up- his bones have grown stiff as of recently, a combination of age and the cold weather- and opening the door with a harsh, “What?”

 

It’s the young boy who serves as his messenger, now looking pale at Silver’s glare and holding out a piece of paper to him. “For you, Mr. Silver,” he says, thrusting a piece of paper at him, before departing, not risking to wait around for a coin. 

 

Silver opens the letter. 

 

He’s still holding the piece of paper when Madi comes in from opening the inn downstairs. She pulls at her skirts now that it’s just them, adjusting them while raising an eyebrow. Her clothes nowadays are something less pirate-like, more looking like they belong to someone befitting the wife of a inn owner, but there’s still that fire in her eyes that any ideal, docile English wife would never have, even after all these years. 

 

She doesn’t have to say a word, just studies him from across the room. When it’s clear he can’t unclench his fingers long enough to set it down, let alone form words, she speaks up. 

 

“Where is it from?” Madi asks, crossing the room to stand behind him where he’d collapsed in the chair. Her hands are warm on his shoulders, and she waits for him. 

 

“Savannah,” Silver says. 

 

Her hands tighten ever so slightly, but she doesn’t ask the obvious question, not when she can read over his shoulder, her eyes blinking rapidly. 

 

To the careful writing of one Lord Thomas Hamilton, only he signs the letter with a simple Thomas _,_ giving them the location of a house outside of Savannah. 

 

Silver breathes in, out, and Madi lets go of his shoulders. He watches as she takes a few steps back, sits hard on the bed. 

 

He can’t move, not yet, but he can see her thinking, hands spinning her wedding ring so it catches the dim light from the window just slightly. He can’t make this decision again for her, not again, but he’s suddenly afraid of what her answer might be. Now that they’ve made this life here, and she’s always been the strong one, after all. Despite the letter, he knows he will follow her to the ends of this earth, even if it means throwing these words into the flames-

 

“It will take us some time to manage our affairs here,” Madi says finally, and Silver stares. “We will need to use some of the gems, I suppose, if we are to make an abrupt departure, but if we can wait a week-” 

 

He’s standing up and across the room before he knows it, crutch haphazardly falling to the ground beside the bed as he sweeps her into a desperate kiss. Madi makes a surprised noise against his mouth, before clutching at him. He feels alive in a way that he hasn’t felt as he watched the island disappear into the distance on that ship, hopeful in a way he thought that had long been extinguished.

 

Madi lightly pushes him back after a few seconds, and Silver moves his arms so that they’re bracketing her face, supporting his weight on the bed. “You thought I would suggest we let this, let him go? After all we have gone through, you still believe I would not ,” she asks, looking hurt.

 

But before she can say anything more, Silver’s pressing another kiss to her mouth, to the tip of her nose, his heart full at the way her faces scrunches. 

 

“I made a promise to you, before we were married,” Silver says. “I promised you I would not make such decisions by myself ever again, and that extends even to this.”

 

Madi studies him. “We’re going to see James again,” she says quietly, a smile slowly growing on her face.

 

“I’ll swim the two of us across the goddamn ocean if that’s what it means,” Silver promises, pressing a kiss to the base of her neck, and her bright laughter catches him off guard like it always does, as he moves lower.

 

It’s like they’re young lovers once again, learning each other’s bodies as he lifts her skirts and she pulls him up over her. Her hands twine in his hair, pulling with every gasp, and he clutches at each other like it’s the end of the world, burying his head in her neck. 

 

A few hours later, she sends him down to the docks to inquiry about ships leaving for Savannah, and even though his leg twinges every time his crutch gets caught in the soft mud of a puddle, he feels light enough to rise in the air. 

 

He dreams about James that night, and for the first time, it’s not a nightmare. Instead, he’s holding out a hand to John, offering him a freckled hand, and John is reaching for it before he wakes up.

 

•••

 

Several weeks later, they’re finally boarding the ship, and Madi has a satisfied expression on her face when they watch Bristol slip away into nothingness. 

 

The voyage is rougher than Silver remembered, the last time he was on such a ship, and they both curse and moan at each other for the first few days with illness, a combination of squeamish food and rough water. It takes some getting used to being a passenger on a ship, rather than a member of the crew or a quartermaster or a captain, and he learns to adjust to the rolling deck all over again. 

 

Madi seems afflicted with sea sickness more than him, which he doesn’t think much of. He wakes one morning, and she is not by his side, so he wanders up to the deck to look for her.

 

The sun is shining brightly overhead, and he takes a moment to breath in the fresh salty air, the odor of fish and wood and metal. The crew on this ship avoids them, casting strange looks on the two of them when they don’t think Silver notices, but he pays them no mind as he comes up behind her. 

 

“I was kidding about swimming being an efficient way to make it to our destination,” Silver says, resting his arms on the wood besides her. Madi’s staring out onto the ocean, a hand on her stomach. 

 

She casts a sideways look at him, but doesn’t turn. “Will it be another new start for us, I wonder?” Madi asks, and he tries to meet her eyes at that, but there’s a small furrow in her brow. 

 

“I suppose a new location always gives the opportunity for renewal,” he says slowly, “Although the more important question is, what does one give up for this new start?” 

 

“I’ve been thinking about my mother,” Madi says instead of answering his question, her eyes distant. “She started a new life on that island all those years ago, leaving my father behind so that I could have the promise for a new life.” Silver nudges his elbow against hers, and she tilts her head slightly. “I was too young, I don’t remember actually coming to the island. One moment I was playing with Eleanor Guthrie in the sand, the next I was on that island. Home. I don’t think I’ve felt at home for many years.” 

 

Silver swallows. He thinks of the way that Madi’s eyes had filled with tears when she had hugged her mother goodbye, the way her mother had looked anguished just for a moment before schooling her features again, the queen once again tamping away any excess emotion to be strong for her daughter. They had both known that going back to the island was too risky to be attempted, but he wonders if she’s thinking about that now. “Are you thinking about home now?”   


 

Madi’s lip twitch up. “I’m thinking about the home of our child, where that will be.” She turns to look at Silver then, who finds he cannot move at first. “I hope Savannah is a place suited to be a home for us, for her.”

 

“Her,” Silver says softly, then, “How do you know?” 

 

“My mother says that she knew, and I just know,” Madi says, and takes one of his hands to press against her stomach. He watches his fingers spread across her stomach- barely a gentle curve there, but the knowledge that his child- _their child-_ is enough to make him want to weep, feeling his heart expand. 

 

“I’ll make it a home,” Silver promises her, to both of them. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” 

 

•••

 

 

Savannah is sticky, humid in a way that he realizes he has not experienced until the sickening heat hits them just outside of the port. Silver mops the sweat from his brow as he leads the horse, Madi tucked away in the cart, hands folded pensively over her growing stomach. 

 

“I don’t think it can be much farther now,” she remarks, sounding rather chipper despite the sweltering heat. He sends a half-hearted glare to her, but there’s no real annoyance. There are tendrils of anxiety that are tightening with every step closer to their destination, and he knows Madi knows this, can see it in the way his face is drawn tight beyond the hot sun. 

 

Then they’re climbing up a hill, and there’s a house in the distance. It’s small, with a faint plume of smoke curling out of the chimney. He can see two figures, and Silver can feel his heartbeat in his ears, throbbing in his temples. He lets go of the reins as they approach. 

 

He looks up at Madi, and the desperation in his eyes must show, for she squeezes the hand that he belatedly lifts to help her out of the cart. “Make the choice, John,” she says, standing in the dirt besides him.

 

Then they’re walking, and James and Thomas are right there, holding hands and looking every bit a pair of humble farmers. Silver is transfixed as he drinks in the sight of James, who looks like he’s barely aged a day. The only evidence of time is in a streak of white at his temple, his long hair curling over his bare jaw- and God, does Silver want to drag his mouth over that jaw, whisper apologies into his mouth.

 

“We have been looking for you two,” Madi says from besides him, “It has been far too long.”

 

Thomas smiles, and the expression on James’s face is radiant, like the sun cresting over clouds as he watches Silver fall in love all over again. 

 

“Come inside,” James says. When he holds out his hand, John takes it.

 

•••


End file.
